


Certainty

by squarizona



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-29
Updated: 2012-03-29
Packaged: 2017-11-02 16:20:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squarizona/pseuds/squarizona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>because I accidentally set a ship out to sea and now I have to keep fueling the engine. for Bailey.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Certainty

**Author's Note:**

> because I accidentally set a ship out to sea and now I have to keep fueling the engine. for Bailey.

Brad Colbert could understand the beauty of a sunset, the intrinsic and natural appeal to it. There was something satisfying about seeing a day through to its end, to know that you put in your worth and had a visual reward. Shortly after that, the rest of the cosmos took turns on the stage, stars and comets gracefully dotting the edges of sight here and there. To his logical mind, it made sense. But colors and the thrill of natural fireworks and warmth and the beauty in retreating light couldn’t be attributed to logic—it was something else entirely, something folded and tucked between sentimentality and wordlessness. The softness of this girl’s arm… that was heaven. Even logic can’t unlock that.

Past this sunset and at the first wisp of the sunrise that followed, he was due to ship out again. He wasn’t afraid; he was the Iceman for a reason. Even if he felt fear, it made no sense to show it. He preferred to think of it as raw, unfiltered challenges thrust on him all at once, and not the incapability to handle them, but the momentary shock of change. Change, inevitability—he didn’t try to fight those anymore. Relying on the consistency, he learned how to make do.

Love was supposed to be a mystery, but it wasn’t. Especially not this time. Bailey knew Brad’s mind inside and out and her way of knowing was beautiful to him. With the unknown, there was discomfort. In clarity, there was a simple joy within understanding. That was Bailey. They way she knows because she just does. A combined effort from his friends and Bailey’s friends determined that it worked because they were the same person. Social doctrines and buzz phrases were not Brad’s strong suit (what the hell does _birds of a feather flock together_ even mean in all practicality? Don’t all birds have feathers?), but luckily, they didn’t matter a damn thing to Bailey.

The heel of the sun graced the horizon. He tapped at the softness of her elbow with rhythmic, light fingertips. The entire field sighed with the wind, stalks of wheat whispering sweet nothings against each other. Brad’s leg was falling asleep. Bailey was not falling asleep, because what sense is there in falling asleep in a field? She imagined that they were probably thinking of the same thing, and that’s what caused her to close her arm over Brad’s hand to stop the tapping. She folded her arm behind her head. “We don’t have to talk about it.”

He yanked his hand free and lost it again in the depths of her hair spilling over his knee. His other hand found hers, soft like heaven. “Yeah, I know. Unless you want to.” He didn’t want to talk about it because he wasn’t afraid, but he kept talking. “It’s only fifteen months. You know how it was last time.”

“Yeah, I know.” Bailey let go of Brad’s fingers and plucked a blade. She ran it across his ankle before twisting it in her fingers. She was fearless in her way of asking, “Are you scared?” And that terrified Brad more than the war itself.

He grew up in a quiet home where anything other than bravery was shushed until it could be won over. During his first tour, he was the calm one, and that was how he saved lives. Fear led to deaths, injuries, inadvertently into roadside bombs. Unnatural fireworks, not at all like sunsets, not at all like this heaven. He didn’t want to talk about it because he wasn’t afraid, but he kept talking because he loved Bailey more than he feared anything. “Not in the same way,” he said. It was true—on one hand, now he knew the rules. On the other hand, now he knew the rules. He had, by his watch, just a few hours and a pocketful of minutes left to feel scared. He chose instead to spend it fearlessly in love, comforted by the knowledge that it would always be his first choice. “It’s not that I’m scared. I just don’t want to go.” He tensed around her. “Too long without you.”

She squeezed his hand. “We did it before. We can do it again.”

The sun had gracefully bowed below the horizon and the curtains had drawn on the day with hardly any notice. Neither was particularly surprised by the advent of night. The element of surprise had been smothered and contained early on in both their lives—Brad, having been told by his adopted parents that being Jewish meant no Santa, and Bailey having unearthed the logical fallacy early on, because who can fit down a chimney and leave presents like that for billions of people across the globe within seconds, and why? Surprise wasn’t exactly a necessity for anyone other than children.

Of all things, Brad still believed in it. He understood the excitement of a momentary blip in the schedule if it all turned out for the better, because according to the laws of gravity and warfare and love and all three combined, greater forces will always swing you back into pattern like a well-timed embrace, like orbit. He wasn’t sure how he could pull it off, but there is a certainty in planning a surprise. For instance, if it so happened to fall pat that he could get out of bed before the sun began its ballet again, he could fix a pot of coffee and leave it in his mug at the table on her side of the bed, and place it just so that it hid the ring box. And he would take his turn to spin out of orbit in the sheer thrill of it, and then he would fall into line again. He could kiss her temple and make his quiet exit and she wouldn’t feel compelled to recreate a scene in some movie where the girl falls on her knees on the hard gravel driveway as he marches away in his fatigues with his duffel slung over one shoulder, a single tear down his cheek and a river down hers.  Because, realistically speaking, nothing ever worked like a movie. There was always an edge of sincerity, a deeper understanding. Everything always had and always would work like clockwork, like an algorithm, like a ballet. Sunrise to sunset. Fear to bravery. Understood silence, a small sunburst of celebration, a yes—her moment out of orbit. And then, fifteen short months later—well, it’s illogical to think that far off, anyway.


End file.
